“Am plecat din oraşul absurdului şi am ajuns ȋn oraşul suprarealismului.” I left the town of absurd and I ended up in the city of surrealism.

Simone (Germany), Viktoria (Switzerland) and Cristina (Romania) have had a chat with a very talkative Romanian woman. She left the Romanian town Slatina (where Eugéne Ionesco was born) for Brussels ( the home of René Magritte) in 1991. Until 1989, Romania was a communist country, but even after the revolution, society has been changing too slowly, so Carmen and her family decided to flee to Brussels. Here they finally had the opportunity to develop a really open minded way of thinking and they could form their personal opinions.

“Educaţia comunistă pe care am primit-o ne-a insuflat ideea că rromii ne sunt inferiori, dar am realizat că avem cu toţii aceleaşi drepturi.”The idea that the Roma are inferior to us was instilled by the communist education we got, but I realised that all of us should have the same rights.

Although being a closed community and having a very old culture which is against development, the Roma persons who worked with Carmen could integrate step by step in the Belgian society. Because she also has been through the difficult integration process, she decided to start the Arthis organisation in 1994. The organisation doesn’t only help the Roma but also Romanians, Bulgarians and a lot of the eastern Europeans, with getting papers, finding work and education in Brussels.

Carmen reached a lot, but she wants to do more with her work in order to adapt to the continously transforming society. The problems minorities have will be changing and she has to be ready to help.